Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

I have said two things. One was in relation to prosecutions and the other was that the report—and I will repeat this word for word—might contain personal information or commercially sensitive material that could not be made public without unfairly disadvantaging individuals in the inquiry. If required to table his report, Mr Callinan would therefore effectively be limited to including only information that could be made public. We do not want to see such a restriction being placed on the report to government which may in fact be very helpful in undertaking any changes. At the end of the day, what we want is the best possible advice arising out of this inquiry to ensure that we get quarantine in relation to this matter as correct as possible. Given those circumstances, we would want the greatest amount of flexibility given to Mr Callinan so that he can be full and frank in his report without having to constrain himself because of the considerations that I have outlined.